HIV

It’s estimated that India has 5.6 million people living with HIV – more than any other country. Success in controlling HIV in India can positively impact the overall world situation just because of the sheer numbers.

PSI/India is involved in several large-scale prevention projects aimed at curbing HIV incidence:

Avahan program

Sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, this program promotes safer sexual practices in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu states. PSI/India also makes condoms accessible along national highways. The core of PSI/India’s contribution to this program is intensive communication, franchising and distribution in 100 locations where HIV prevalence and risky behavior is highest. PSI/India has reached more than 7.6 million clients of sex workers in these areas.

HIV/AIDS Workplace Intervention Program

Under USAID’s Project Connect, PSI/India helps mobilize the private sector to support HIV/AIDS-related interventions. It also establishes prevention of parent-to-child transmission centers through public-private partnerships and advocacy with the insurance and pharmaceutical sectors.

Collieries Outreach Intervention for Limiting HIV/AIDS (COILA)

PSI/India implements this HIV prevention program for the coal mining community, in partnership with Jharkhand State AIDS Control Society. The project studies the norms of people in the coal mining districts of Jharkhand and then launches effective interventions with support from partners.

In the state of Rajasthan, PSI/India manages a government-sponsored health center that provides antenatal and post-natal care, immunization, treatment of childhood illnesses and other services. With funding from KfW and David and Lucile Packard Foundation, PSI/India uses a variety of communication methods to reach thousands of women in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Jharkhand with family planning messaging. PSI/India also markets the women’s anemia-prevention nutritional supplements, Vitalet and Vitalet PREG.

PSI/India’s five-year reproductive health initiative in 11 states is building the capacity of private-public health care providers, promoting underutilized products and creating demand for the services of trained, qualified health service providers.

Child Health

More than 600,000 Indian children die of dehydration from diarrhea each year. Water disinfectants, rehydration salts and zinc supplementation are low-cost solutions that can yield priceless benefits. PSI/India currently works to lower incidence of diarrheal diseases and related child mortality in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, West Bengal and Orissa.

PSI/India also markets Safewat, a water disinfectant, and various brands of oral rehydration salts and zinc tablets. A pilot program is under way to promote the use of ORS and zinc tablets to reduce morbidity and mortality due to diarrheal disease among children under age 5 in Rajasthan.

Early HIV Diagnosis Critical to Child SurvivalPSI India’s Project Connect, a five-year PMTCT program that ended in 2011, counseled and tested more than 42,400 women, enrolled 945 HIV-positive women in the program and delivered 836 babies, with a transmission rate of 2.9 percent.

A Market-Led, Evidence-Based Approach to Rural SanitationIn 2012, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PSI launched a program in Bihar, India to generate both supply and demand for improved sanitation. This white paper was prepared by Monitor Inclusive Markets on behalf of the Gates Foundation.